America
CD: Mavis Staples - If All I Was Was BlackSunday, 19 November 2017
The queen of R&B is no stranger to struggle – the Staples Singers, led by Pops, played a key role in the 1960s civil rights movement, emerging from the gospel circuit as so many great black singers did. Mavis’ first paid gig was with her family... Read more... |
Network, National Theatre review - Bryan Cranston’s searing London stage debutTuesday, 14 November 2017
Outrage knows no time barrier, as the world at large reminds us on a daily basis. So what better moment for the National Theatre to fashion for the internet age a stage adaptation of Network, the much-laureled 1976 celluloid satire about lunacy... Read more... |
Storyville: Toffs, Queers and Traitors, BBC Four review - the spy who was a scampTuesday, 14 November 2017
“There is something odd, I suppose, about anyone who betrays their country.” It’s an excellent opening line, particularly when delivered in director George Carey’s nicely querulous narrative voice, for Toffs, Queers and Traitors (BBC Four). He... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Incredible Shrinking ManTuesday, 14 November 2017
The Incredible Shrinking Man starts innocently with a young couple bantering on a small boat off the California coast. Before what looks like an atomic mushroom cloud wafts towards the unfortunate Scott Carey, lightly coating him in glittery fallout... Read more... |
The Best of AA Gill review - posthumous words collectedSunday, 12 November 2017
Word wizard. Grammar bully. Sentence shark. AA Gill didn’t play fair by syntax: he pounced on it, surprising it into splendid shapes. And who cared when he wooed readers with anarchy and aplomb? Hardly uncontroversial, let alone inoffensive (he... Read more... |
Glengarry Glen Ross, Playhouse Theatre review - Christian Slater is gently charismaticSaturday, 11 November 2017
American classics dominate the straight plays in London’s West End. Whenever a producer wants to revive a straight drama, they will inevitably look first at the back catalogue of Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller or, in this case, David Mamet.... Read more... |
The Florida Project - bright indie flick packs a punchSaturday, 11 November 2017
Sean Baker’s The Florida Project is a wonderful ode to childhood summers and America’s forgotten class. The film follows foul-mouthed six-year-old Moonee, who spends her days playing with friends and terrorising fellow motel residents, and her... Read more... |
Trump: An American Dream/Angry, White and American, Channel 4 review - a timely look at Trump and the causes of TrumpFriday, 10 November 2017
There are, as I’m sure many of you are aware, four key stages of political change. Denial, anger, acceptance and, finally, documentary film-making. Now that the Donald has been ensconced in the White House for over a year, Channel 4’s, Trump: An... Read more... |
Professor Marston and the Wonderwomen review - Rebecca Hall to the rescueFriday, 10 November 2017
Wonder Woman was the film that defied all the predictions: a big-budget superhero movie directed by a woman which managed to please not only the feminists and their daughters but also the boys who love DC and Marvel. In its slipstream comes... Read more... |
Age of Terror: Art Since 9/11, Imperial War Museum review - affecting but incoherentWednesday, 01 November 2017
The Imperial War Museum’s Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 brings together art made in response to the immediate events and long-term consequences of the events of 11 September. In the main the exhibition is more historical survey of conflict-related... Read more... |
CD Special: Bob Dylan's Trouble No More review - he’d never sound betterWednesday, 01 November 2017
After more than 35 years of subterranean bootleg life, Bob Dylan’s incendiary gospel shows and sessions from 1979 to 1981 are seeing the light of day as volume 13 of the Official Bootleg Series. Trouble No More comes as a regular two-CD and deluxe... Read more... |
The Consul, Guildhall School review - blowsy melodrama rooted by committed studentsTuesday, 31 October 2017
Fancy that: the day after the last major Menotti staging I can remember in the UK, The Medium at the Edinburgh Festival, "splendid piece of post-Puccinian grand guignol" turned up in two different reviews (moral: don't discuss the performance with... Read more... |
